By HELEN RALEIGH | The Federalist
President Joe Biden’s Energy Department canceled its plan to purchase millions of barrels of oil to refill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The cancellation means the Biden administration is unlikely to fulfill its promise of fully replenishing the SPR by the end of the year, and the SPR will remain at a historically low level after the administration depleted it in 2022.
The depletion of the SPR was caused by the Biden administration’s own failed energy policy. Shortly after he came into office, President Biden issued a series of anti-fossil fuel energy policies, including canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline project and halting leasing on federal lands for oil and gas production. Biden’s energy policies strangled American energy production and supply and caused energy prices to soar. According to the Heritage Foundation, “from January 2021 to January 2022, crude oil prices increased 45 percent, blowing past records set in 2008. Gasoline and diesel prices are the highest on record since the Energy Information Administration started keeping track in 1993.”